Eudaimonia

Why I gave away my company to charity

2010-01-24T18:09:00.003-02:00

As the rain falls heavily in Extrema/MG where I'm spending a public holiday, my friend Eric talks about the entrepreners he admires the most. One of them, Derek Sivers, wrote an article I find fascinating, combining inventiveness, competence and self consciousness.

Enjoy it!

Extracted from: http://sivers.org/trust

Why I gave away my company to charity

Two friends were at a party held at the mansion of a billionaire. One said, “Wow! Look at this place! This guy has everything!” The other said, “Yes, but I have something he'll never have: enough.”

When I decided to sell my company in 2008, I already had enough.

I live simply. I hate waste and excess. I have a good apartment, a good laptop, and a few other basics. But the less I own, the happier I am. The lack of possessions gives me the priceless freedom to live anywhere anytime.

Having too much money can be harmful. It throws off perspective. It makes people do stupid things like buy “extra” cars or houses they don't use - or upgrade to first class for “only” $10,000 so they can be a little more comfortable for a few hours.

So I didn't need or even want the money from the sale of the company. I just wanted to make sure I had enough for a simple comfortable life. The rest should go to music education, since that's what made such a difference in my life.

So I came up with a great way to do this. I created a charitable trust called the “Independent Musicians Charitable Remainder Unitrust.” When I die, all of its assets will go to music education. But while I'm alive, it pays out 5% of its value per year to me, to cover my living expenses.

A few months before the sale, I transferred the ownership of CD Baby and HostBaby, all the intellectual property like trademarks and software, into the trust.

It was irreversibly and irrevokably gone. It was no longer mine. It all belonged to the charitable trust.

Then, when Disc Makers bought it, they bought it not from me but from the trust, turning it into $22 million cash to benefit music education.

That's one way to sleep well at night, huh?

So instead of me selling the company - (getting taxed on the income, and giving what's left to charity) - that move of giving away the company to charity then having the charity sell it saved about $5 million in taxes. (That means $5 million more going to music education instead of another tank in Iraq or a banker's bailout bonus.)

Also, the move of giving it away into a trust now - instead of holding on to it until I die - means its investments get to grow and compound tax-free for life, which again means more goes to musicians in the end.

I'm writing this article because many people have asked why I gave it away, so I thought I'd write my long explanation once and for all.

It's not that I'm altruistic. I'm sacrificing nothing. I've just learned what makes me happy. And doing it this way made me the happiest.

I get the deeper happiness of knowing the lucky streak I've had in my life will benefit tons of people - not just me.

I get the pride of knowing I did something irreversibly smart before I could change my mind.

I get the safety of knowing I won't be the target of a frivolous lawsuit, since I have very little net worth.

I get the unburdened freedom of having it out of my hands so I can't do something stupid.

But most of all, I get the constant priceless reminder that I have enough.

What matters to you?

2009-12-27T20:43:00.000-02:00

Wish you get involved with something that matters to you in 2010.

Happy new year!

Multiculturalism at COP

2009-12-16T14:40:00.000-02:00

One of the great things about COP15 is its multicultural environment. It's common to have lunch with a Saudi official representative, see smiling Nigerians in the trains and find ourselves in a circle of 12 people from 9 different country.

The top moment, though, didn't happen in Bella Center. A couple of days ago, I was in train from Copenhagen (Denmark) to Malmo (Sweden) and saw Danish parents playing with a happy baby. In the next stop, a group of English speaking Africans got into the train. The baby was fascinated by the woman who sat behind his mother and basically spent most of the rest of the trip on the lap of the unknown loving lady.

Copenhagen breaths global warming

2009-12-16T13:59:00.004-02:00

First published on www.g-1billion.org

An amazing thing in Copenhagen is how everything in the city reminds us of COP15 and the climate change issue: corporate ads, unexpected events, protests and the NGO manifestations.

Out of all, 2 are my favorite:

- The fossil of the day award, by CAN – a shame award, highlighting the 3 top countries blocking the negotiations on each day.

- The Greenpeace tck tck tck campaign – spread posters featuring some of our global leaders across airports and public spaces all over the world.

Wonder how much leaders are touched by these things. As representatives of the public will, I really hope they are!

What's lacking for negotiations' progress?

2009-12-13T07:50:00.000-02:00

First published on www.g-1billion.org

Have you noticed that some of the most admired and care attracting people we know are the helpful ones? Have you realized that the best way to earn somebody's respect and commitment is trust?

Those seem like very obvious statements, lessons we learn very early in life. Well, maybe not as much.

Observing the COP plenary this morning, some mental paradigms were clear:

- Tell me the size of your commitment and I'll do just a little less (when discussing greenhouse emission targets)

- I will just sign an agreement obliging me if we all sign another one obliging others (developed countries trying to suspend the Kyoto Protocol, because it was not guaranteed that the Long term Climate Agreement would be ready)

- I wanna take advantage of somebody else, even if I need to create a doubtful reason (oil producers, wanting money from developed countries to compensate their revenues loss with a low carbon economy)

- I share the dream, but don't want to take the sacrifices to get there (all countries, when trying to lower their commitments)

If we seriously want to keep global warming under 2 degrees, we urgently need to change this win-lose mental model. This is not a trade negotiation when the less I conceive, the more I gain. In the climate discussion, the more I do, the better for everyone (including me!). And if trust inspires commitment, who is going to step up and announce a seriously challenging target?

Biggest climate change demonstration in history!

2009-12-12T14:47:00.002-02:00

ZoeCaron's picture of the civil society march this afternoon.

Brazil is mobilized for the COP 15 – and for what comes after

2009-12-09T23:53:00.001-02:00

First published on www.g-1billion.org

Have you ever heard the statement “if only the media would cover this critical issue…”? It’s fair enough, because the media, particularly TV, has an unbelievable mass reach. Well, when it comes to global warming and COP 15 coverage, Brazilian media is behaving exemplary.

In the last week or so, all news sessions on TV, all newspapers and most of the most read magazines are featuring at least one piece of news focusing on the theme. In practice, this means that every Brazilian is being exposed to what global warming is, what the consequences might be and what each one of us can do. Personally, I received 2 calls from friends who don’t care much about sustainability to congratulate me for taking part of COP 15 – quite impressive, huh?

Good news is the media is not the only mobilized sector. On top of environmental NGOs and individuals, commonly resistant sectors are standing up for a courageous position. A good share of the Brazilian most influential companies signed, in the last 3 months or so, letters and agreements pressuring the government to establish a greenhouse gas emission cut goal and stating their commitment to efficiency, supply chain policies and low carbon innovation.

The initiative paid off. The government announced a 36 – 39% reduction goal for 2020 and dropped all the excuses about the damage to Brazilian business competitiveness internationally.

I’m curious to talk to people from other nationalities to see how other countries are acting and how the population is being involved. I hope it’s going to be a tough race with many great examples. This way, countries might fell empowered to set daring goals in Copenhagen and work hard, after the conference, to establish a system stimulating the productive sector to be innovative towards solving the world’s biggest problems.

Brazil is definitely on that race!

PS: I’m arriving in Copenhagen tomorrow, so you can expect more posts about Brazil, the companies’ position and craziness of engaged individuals.

Good, better, even better with Acumen Fund

2009-12-07T23:09:00.001-02:00

Don't wait too long

2009-11-27T22:42:00.003-02:00

Today, we facilitated the last Pathways and Challenges program of the year, a 2-day event created for leaders of client and supplier companies in order to share Grupo Santander’s sustainability practices and contribute to the evolution we expect to see in the organisations, the market and the society.

In 2 years, we run 26 workshops in various cities for almost 3,000 leaders of about 1,400 companies – certainly one of the largest stakeholder engagement programs in Brazil.

On top of the normal personal satisfaction, today felt special. First, because of the group, that was especially smart and participative. Second, because we successfully tested a new tool to help organisations choose what to do according to their realities. And finally because our CEO Fabio Barbosa came and finished the day brilliantly, talking about transparency and ethics.

Many memories will remain for a long long time. Amongst them, a song that will always be connected to the program in my mind.

Don’t wait too long
Madeleine Peyroux

You can cry a million tears
You can wait a million years
If you think that time will change your ways
Don't wait too long
[...]
Maybe I got a lot to learn
Time can slip away
Sometimes you got to lose it all
Before you find your way

Take a chance, play your part
Make romance, it might break your heart.
But if you think that time will change your ways
Don't wait too long

To watch the clip, click here.

A New Year - by Regina Casé

2009-11-24T00:04:00.003-02:00

See what Regina Casé (mentioned in the previous post) wrote about culture, people and slums, as the last episode of her "Periphery Central" went on air.

A New Year
Regina Casé
transation by Ronaldo Lemos

Having viewed some of “Periphery Central”, you have probably noticed that I often look like I’m raving mad, foaming at the mouth, amazed and delighted with the slums, the poor folk, the black folk…

If you allow me to explain myself, it’s just that the favelas offer a wide variety of drugs, and I’ve become addicted to the strongest, single most mind-altering drug there exists. This is the same drug that makes the boys from the favelas to be eyed with suspicion when they cross the frontier into the city to buy bread; the frontier that separates the slums from the offices where they work; the frontier that makes these boys speak differently, stare differently, and walk differently if they don’t want to be fired.

Such frontiers are like battlefronts, sometimes with actual concrete barricades. Crossing over, the women who work as cooks in the city stop walking with their usual swinging gait, and lower their tone of voice. The men who work as waiters cease to vocalize the opinions they have of the clients they serve. These frontiers are the same frontiers that thousands of taxi drivers in Paris, Mexico City or NYC cross every day when they leave their homes, to follow our orders, to take us places. We don’t get to see much more than the back of their necks; they don’t get to suggest us a destination in the peripheries we might just need to see. Every one of these people’s thousand aspirations and dreams completely disappear when the boundaries that separate the periphery from the center are crossed, along with substantial parts of their cultural backgrounds. If the inhabitants of the periphery are invisible, their dreams and aspirations are even more ethereal.

That is, if you don’t take that special drug I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s very easy to do. It’s equally invisible, and extremely fast-acting. All that it takes is to cross the frontiers into the periphery but a single time, and see one of these ghosts back in the flesh, as a whole person, different from anyone else. Unique, and not as part of another figure in social exclusion statistics. It’s impossible not to be carried away, it’s unconceivable to feel this rush and be left unchanged. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to look so insane, so in love with all of this. But there’s no other way.

And it empowers you with a different set of sensorial skills. You start noticing that when you see the Carnival parades as you always do, only this time you recognize the lady who serves you coffee shining like a queen in the middle of the street. Or when you go to a Brazilian rap concert and hear the same beat of the samba schools’ percussionists in the voices of an enraptured audience, singing all the songs, not missing a lyric, getting every syllable right in sequences that are much harder to memorize than the usual samba lyrics. When, likewise, you see those terrible pictures of living conditions in prisons, with those hundreds of pairs of arms reaching out from behind bars, and immediately realize how each hand holds so many different wishes, hatreds, fears and passions, but a common desire: that the favelas cease to be an extension of the prison, and that the prison ceases to be an extension of the favelas.

We still believe in an old fashioned illusion, much along the lines of some traditional Brazilian soap opera scripts, whose protagonists are white, rich, beautiful farmers with different personalities, surrounded by a supporting cast of black slaves who are interchangeable and expendable - with the exception of a single token evil slave among hundreds of indolent mates. Not much different than American westerns with their white characters, and Native American caricatures. Even today, when stories are set in the peripheries, and written by well-meaning people, actors are almost always split into two groups: one with “society’s victims” and another with those who have managed to escape from a life of crime.

After a year traveling around the world, visiting the peripheries of different countries looking for similarities - and sometimes finding enormous differences - I feel that none of these roles is representative of anything. But what to make of this discovery? And what to make with all of this invisible power? How to close the year, to review what has happened, and to wish for a better New Year?

There is only a single image that comes to me. In Moçambique’s countryside, we found a village that I believed to be the most remote place I had ever set foot on. No one spoke a word of Portuguese, English or French. The chief had many wives...there was no asphalt…a woman was cooking in front of a hut made of mud. I couldn’t stop saying “Shoot that, shoot that!” to my cameraman. I was amazed with myself and my surroundings, with how far away my universe was from that place. But suddenly, the woman stopped working, and picked up a cell phone. My world fell down. And from its debris, I can build my wishes for a different kind of New Year.
I don’t know if “the periphery” is the same periphery everywhere in the world. But that day, I realized that “the market” is “the market” absolutely everywhere. What we need to do now is pray. Pray for Saint Market. Pray for Saint Market to lose control, to carry these masses someplace else, where things are fairer and everything is beautiful. Let “God” become this chaotic intelligence; and let’s surrender to randomness, and let randomness surprise us. May a revolution come with these home appliances and cell phones that are reaching the hands the poor, and may this revolution be plotted in the thousands of LAN houses that are hidden among the drug outposts in the slums. May the pamphlets of this revolution be the billions of pirate CDs and DVDs that are flowing through the veins of the favelas. May these weapons be used against the weapon makers. When that happens, we will all finally have a New Year.

Source: http://www.reginacase.com.br/sec_textos_list.php

Popular Culture

2009-11-23T23:35:00.003-02:00

Last Saturday on TEDxSP Regina Casé talked about the prejudices we carry when we judge legitimate cultural movements, such as funk, technobregra, kuduro and others around the world. Although these movements gather hundreds of thousands, we rarely acknowledge their importance and tend to consider them low class, not good enough to receive attention and investment. Therefore, we never see them on the official media, never offer governmental support (we send the police instead) and don’t even consider it culture.

Well, this Friday I had the pleasure of going to the São Cristóvão markets in Rio and experience other amazing undervalued expression: Brazil’s northeastern culture.

As soon as Hanna and I got there, we felt the different atmosphere. The place was not in a fancy suburb, the tickets cost only a dollar, most of the visitors were northeasterns living in Rio and everybody was incredibly welcoming, smiling all the time.

Inside, there was not only one stage, but perhaps 20 of them: 2 bigger shows, karaoke, forró playing at every corner and live 3-family-members’ bands at their relatives’ restaurants.

On top of that, the food was amazing and one could find fresh northeastern cooking ingredients, particularly manioc flour types (apparently, the flour gets thicker as we go north).

Enjoying the shows were people from all ethnicities and ages, all dancing together, respecting each other and having the best time. One of the top moments was to hear the forró version of the song Rise Up (My dream is to fly / Over the rainbow so high). It goes like this:

Gatinha, tu gosta mais
De red label ou ice
Pra mim tanto faz
Ou red label ou ice

For me, the São Cristóvão markets represented some of the coolest things about Brazil: diversity, creativity, receptiveness and fun.

Considering the world needs a lot more equality, respect and widespread opportunities, maybe we should privilege the São Cristóvão markets model rather than big one-artist shows for a small rich audience.

Therefore, we might be able to redefine what popular culture really is.

Deciding from our air-conditioned offices

2009-11-16T00:24:00.007-02:00

This Saturday, I had the pleasure to take part at TEDxSP, an independently organised TED event. From 07h30 to 20h00, more than 30 people passed their message to a super qualified 700 people audience.

Right in the beginning, journalist Denis Burgierman sad something somehow obvious, but that touched me importantly. He said: “We have the bad habit of solving problems in an air-conditioned room and imposing the solution to others. The problems are not theoretical, they are on the streets. And they can only be successfully addressed if the people affected by them are involved.”

The point of Denis’ lecture was that Brazil is rich in many things, especially in problems. As weird as it sounds at first, for him the abundant interesting problems is one of our biggest assets, because they channel creative people’s passion and efforts, generating a very attractive and flourishing environment. Therefore, specific problems are solved, more people engage in solving more complex problems and we can form a bank of creative solutions adapted to our times, which can be replicated in other places.

When working for big organisations, we often feel contributing for building large scale solutions to important issues, such as poverty, shortage of opportunities, low quality education and, in my case, pathways for bringing sustainability into the management of different organisations. However, commonly we do such from our acclimatised offices, based on cold data and on what we think we know about the problem.

Well, turns out it could be better to be “less efficient”, do less stuff, so we can free our agendas to interact with the ones directly involved in the situation. This way, we can build stronger solutions, help forming a community in the process and individually learn.

I am certain we become better people in the proportion we learn to respect other points of views and stories. And we can only learn that lesson by wholeheartedly engaging with others.

So, why is it we don’t do it?

Birds on the Wires

2009-11-15T23:26:00.003-02:00

Inspired on a picture of Birds on the Wires, the Brazilian musician Jarbas Agnelli translated their position onto a melody which crossed the world and made him famous.

Sensitive and beautiful!

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

The fun theory

2009-10-29T22:17:00.002-02:00

What can change our behaviour for better? FUN can!!!

The impact of giant companies

2009-10-22T00:22:00.004-02:00

Everybody knows giant companies cause a lot of impact: environmental damages where they produce goods, greenhouse gas emissions while transporting these goods, cultural interferences as they advertise and social issues all along the chain.

German RWE energy company sensitively created a video to question: what if giant companies caused a lot of... POSITIVE impact?

See you in Rio in 2016!!!

2009-10-03T15:48:00.002-03:00

Today, all Brazilians are proud and content. In 2016, we'll have the opportunity to host the world's most beautiful peace and limits overcoming gathering: the Olympic Games. We'll put all our hospitality, rhythm and joy available so that the athletes and visitors can prove the Brazilian spirit, enjoy themselves to the fullest and take a bit of the experience to their lives back home.

As citizens, we also intend to make this wonderful opportunity bring results for the population after the games, through the infrastructure built, partnerships created and cultural exchanges started.

The world will come together as never before, because passion unites us!

Holidays notice :-)

2009-09-21T21:43:00.002-03:00

For all friends calling and writing for my birthday, thanks a lot for the good energy sent!

At the moment, I'm traveling through South America, so had a very different birthday, without any friends and family around, but with lots of beautiful sights, nature, sports and good trekking mates from different countries to celebrate with.

Anyhow, celebrations aren't over. I'll call a party as soon as I'm back and will be super happy to receive belated wishes and calls.

Carpe diem!

Feeling foreign

2009-08-26T21:45:00.002-03:00

When I came back from Australia to Brazil after just 16 months overseas, various people asked: Why?

The easy answer was “I intend to build my life close to my family and close friends”. Although that is partly true, there was another feeling I could never express clearly, a sensation that I would never totally understand the context and fit in another culture.

Today, as part of my preparation for a 3-week backpacking trip through Chile, Bolivia and Peru, I was reading Isabel Allende’s “My invented country”. She is Chilean but has been living in the US for many years now. At some point, I found the description I could never articulate as well:

“I understand the language, but I lack the keys. When we meet our friends, I can’t really participate of the conversations, because I don’t know much about what had happened and about the people they are referring to, I had not watched the same movies when I was young, had not danced to Elvis’ epileptic guitar, had not smoked marihuana nor had I protested against the Vietnam war. How can I not be a foreigner if I don’t feel any fascination for Clinton’s sexual scandal? […] Baseball is another mystery for me; I can’t understand so much passion towards a group of fat people expecting a ball that never comes.”

Sustainability in the president's agenda?

2009-08-23T23:04:00.004-03:00

"It is quite easy to understand why the possibility of senator and ex-minister for the environment Marina Silva running for President of Brazil, in next year’s elections, can cause such excitement but also so much concern. Millions of Brazilians, sensitive to the ecological cause, to environmental and social sustainability, to climate change and our planet’s destiny, to the devastation of our ecosystems and the quality of life in our cities, yearn for a voice and a chance in the presidential campaign, so far limited to candidates promoting and proposing the classic 1960’s unsustainable model of economic growth. One can also understand the anguish of perplexed politicians asking themselves: is this Marina thing good for me? Bad for me?"

From Green Party leader Sirkis

I completely agree this last week has been very very interesting. The perspective of having a female presidential candidate who embodies ethics, grew up in the middle of the Amazon forest, comprehends some of Brazil's deepest social issues and seriously envisions the country walking on a sustainability path has moved so many smart people that it really seems we can dream with a future in which:
- we put people first
- we think about our grandchildren when taking important decisions
- we value what is typically Brazilian
- we help building the country we all want as participatory citizens
- we have the government as a role model

Impossible?

Writing in O Globo newspaper, columnist Zuenir Ventura said Marina could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections. "Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama."

For more, check the article on the UK Guardian

The power of organised individuals

2009-08-20T18:42:00.005-03:00

What can a person do to change businesses? Carrotmob brings one alternative. Check it out!

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Love is important, damn it!

2009-07-31T00:25:00.003-03:00

A few months ago, a lonely graffitter wrote on a wall in Sao Paulo: Love is important, damn it!

It turned out it became a viral urban intervention movement. Various artists and citizens joined the idea and we could see the love burst everywhere in the city.

When photographer Fábio Candeias tried to register the collective feeling, though, he captured a lot more.

Picture taken at Consolação Avenue.
Source: InternetCidade

Getting unstuck

2009-07-21T20:20:00.004-03:00

This lecture by MIT professor Rebecca Henderson is one of the coolest on organisational behaviour and performance management I've seen. Enjoy it!

Vik Muniz

2009-07-19T22:02:00.005-03:00

The brain doesn't pluck its ideas from the flowerbed of idleness. It is above all through the interactions with materials, through work, through effort and ultimately through failure that we nourish our source of ideas.

This statement by internationally renowned Brazilian artist Vik Muniz talks a lot about his work. He gets inspiration in other artists' work, uses all kinds of materials (from plastic toys to computers passing through pasta and chocolate syrup) and invite the spectator to reflect with him about the very concept of reality, as well as fame, happiness and the essence of things.

One of the most sensitive of his pieces, in my opinion, is the Sugar Children. After spending time in a sugar plantation in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, Vik realised how sweet the children were and how narrow their future tended to be. So he used a black base and made the children’s portraits with sugar, the very object that represented at the same time sweetness and oppression.

Wanna know more? Check Vik on TED.

My posts in other (more visited) sites

2009-07-18T14:57:00.002-03:00

As the importance of the internet increases for bridging sons and parents, consumers and organisations, research and the public, I’ve naturally started to contribute to other sites and blogs – especially because the number of visitors of those sites are often many times bigger :-)

Two of my favourite follow (unfortunately only in Portuguese).

Peter Senge and social well being: published in my post grad class blog, talks about the amazing experience of bringing Peter Senge to Brazil, leading the working team according to self mastery and shared leadership principles, and hearing what he has to say about the direction we should take as a global society.

If you want to watch the full lecture in English, click here.

End of Slavery and Sustainability: published on Grupo Santander’s sustainability portal on the End of Slavery week in Brazil, draws a parallel between how we treated slaves 2 centuries ago and how we see the environment nowadays. The reflection came up while going to the countryside with friends for a trekking and rappelling long weekend. Good stuff!

Education system design issue

2009-07-07T00:21:00.002-03:00

Research says the top quartile teacher will increase the performance of their class by over 10% in one single year. Awesome! What are, then, the characteristics of this top quartile?

Very senior teachers? No. Once somebody has taught for 3 years, their teaching quality does not change thereafter.

Maybe teachers with masters degrees? No. According to research, masters degrees have no effect at all in teaching quality.

You might be thinking: the way the pay system works in most countries rewards these two things: seniority and master degrees. What really matters, though, is not any of those. What makes the difference is past performance. Doesn't that make sense? If someone continuously proves s/he is competent at engaging students to learn, s/he will probably have a good performance engaging more students in the future.

Well, classic example of a unintelligent design, which does not see the whole system, does not reinforce desired behaviours and does not naturally create conditions for improvement, i.e. increasing whole classes' performance by 10% every year.

More on Education? Check the provocative TED talk which inspired this post.